It is well known that oxygen is essential for humans to sustain life. Pure oxygen, therefore, has been administered in various concentrations to facilitate breathing and to provide a sense of well-being.
While the benefits of oxygen are well known, the administration of high concentrations of oxygen to human beings, has been heretofore substantially limited to gaseous administrations only. However, if a suitable highly oxygenated drinking water could be made, then one could easily and conveniently receive the benefits of oxygen by merely drinking such water. In this regard, such highly oxygenated drinking water could be readily bottled, and marketed in a similar manner to other conventional bottled drinking water. Drinking water is currently marketed in transparent or translucent glass or plastic bottles.
However, due to the nature of oxygen, it would be extremely difficult to have highly oxygenated pure drinking water stored in a conventional bottle for long periods of time, and still retain its oxygenated nature at the same effective levels of concentration. In this regard, in order to have high quality drinking water, there can not be present any undesirably high concentrations of extraneous substances used to buffer or otherwise retain the oxygen.
Such buffering or other substances could make the drinking water undesirable for human consumption. It would not be desirable to significantly alter the taste or color of the natural drinking water. Also, of course, any additives must not render the natural drinking water toxic or otherwise deteriorate the quality of the drinking water below accepted standards. Any additives should not, in any manner, adversely affect the taste or other qualities of the water.
Also, the bottled drinking water must be able to be stored for long periods of time prior to consumption. Thus, in order to permit the oxygenated drinking water to stand for long periods of time, the oxygen content must remain in tact and be stable, and not undergo unwanted decomposition. Shelf life as well as storage and transportation, are important considerations for bottled drinking water. The storage in clear bottles could also present a significant problem. In this regard, light impinging on the oxygenated water could help accelerate decomposition of the highly oxygenated drinking water.
One approach to highly oxygenated drinking water could be to add a very small concentration of hydrogen peroxide to natural drinking water. With such an additive, the hydrogen peroxide would achieve the desired result of adding the desired oxygen to the water. However, it is well known that hydrogen peroxide is very unstable, especially in the presence of water. For example, reference may be made to U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,480,557; 5,077,047; 5,130,124; 5,206,385; and 5,312,619.
The foregoing patents disclose various additives for use with hydrogen peroxide for stabilizing it, when used as an antiseptic agent or the like. Thus, it is quite clear that hydrogen peroxide is unstable, and thus its level of concentration will become diminished with time, unless stabilization steps are taken. However, in order to stabilize hydrogen peroxide in very minute concentration levels in drinking water, the stabilization problem is far more difficult, and has been heretofore unattainable.
Hydrogen peroxide will disassociate in basic or acidic water conditions, as well as in the presence of metal ions. Thus, the pH of the water, as well as the metal ion content, is critical, should hydrogen peroxide be added. Since only minute quantities of hydrogen peroxide could be added to the drinking water to avoid alteration of the taste, the presence of impurities or other ingredients in the water create a highly unstable environment for the hydrogen peroxide.
If buffering or other additives are employed in an attempt to stabilize the hydrogen peroxide, the taste of the resulting treated drinking water could be altered in an undesirable manner. Also, in view of the requirement of bottling drinking water in clear containers, achieving the stability of hydrogen peroxide in drinking water is extremely difficult.
Thus, it would be extremely desirable to have a process for making highly oxygenated drinking water, which can be stored in clear containers for long periods of time and still maintain the desired levels of concentration of additional oxygen.